Perhaps Nadine Dorries, not Channel 4, needs relocating to the private sector

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

Only on Boris Island would we have the execrable appointment of Nadine Dorries as culture minister (Reuters)

Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, claims public ownership is holding back Channel 4. This could equally be said of her.

If she wasn’t in the public sector, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport would be free to make more sensible decisions that really would help UK creative industries to “flourish and thrive long into the future”.

Roger Hinds

Surrey

Only on Boris Island would we have the execrable appointment of Nadine Dorries as culture minister. Even writing that sentence feels satirical. One might believe they’d woken from a strange dream.

Instead, in order to show his utter contempt for the “pygmies” who vote for him, he graces us with a line-up of ministers who practically rubs our noses in it.

I don’t honestly see why we should have to put up with this outrage until the next election.

Lynn Brymer

Ashford, Kent

Highly effective

I have heard it suggested that Nadine Dorries is “incompetent” merely because she appears not to understand her brief. This is far from the truth – she is in fact highly effective.

One merely needs to understand the purpose of her appointment. On the one hand, she is there to support Johnson – which she does without a trace of shame – a considerable feat in itself. On the other hand, she is there to help divide the nation by fabricating a culture war.

Whereas she may not have entirely succeeded in this yet, it is a long-term project and her contribution may well bear fruit in the future.

Nick Donnelly

Dorset

Tory irony

The lead letter in yesterday’s Independent by Penny Little was very insightful. She highlighted the irony in the fact that the government’s then ethics advisor, Helen McNamara, has been issued a Parytgate fine.

This was then compounded by the attempt by Ms MacNamara to diminish, or downgrade, the severity of the discovered lapse of judgement, occurring potentially at both a professional and personal level.

But other examples of irony, that linger around the Conservative government like an odorous smell, are also competing for attention. The first was covered by Tom Peck on Tuesday. He outlined the difficulty in maintaining a balanced approach to reporting on Jacob Rees-Mogg’s performance on a live phone-in show on LBC.

Not only has the minister responsible for highlighting the benefits of Brexit previously asked Sun readers to proffer their suggestions – seemingly oblivious to the poor optics, to say the least, of using the said organ to enlist support for voting to leave the EU in 2016 by citing all manner of fanciful advantages, only now to ask the same readers to conjure up actual tangible benefits of leaving. But apparently, when irate listeners to the radio show wanted to ask Mr Mogg about Partygate, his response was to attempt to suggest that everyone had “moved on”, from this story, implying its increasing irrelevance.

Perhaps getting a spokesperson for the government to ask people to “move on” is unwise from someone for whom living in the past is something of a trademark. Or was it a deliberate ploy – gaslighting delivered by a relic of the Edwardian era?

To keep up to speed with all the latest opinions and comment, sign up to our free weekly Voices Dispatches newsletter by clicking here

But the latest example of irony is the most worrying of all – the fact that Mr Johnson has the nerve to now attempt to communicate with Russian citizens directly, imploring them to see the folly of their leader’s actions. This, at the same time as his government is announcing plans to sell off Channel 4.

The only failing or “crime’’ of institutions like Channel 4 and the BBC is that they are guilty of attempting to speak truth to power. They embody the real notions of freedom in a democratic society. Thank goodness there are other Tories who are willing to challenge the wisdom of the Channel 4 proposals.

Nigel Plevin

Somerset

A minimum wage for all

Ian Hamilton’s article “Britain’s class divide means the poor are dying younger” is shattering. That, as a nation, we preside over such terrible neglect in a casual manner.

Two actions would transform the situation. A minimum wage for everybody, working or not. An income gives hope rather than the misery described by Ian Hamilton. All of that money will be spent locally, mostly in local shops. Give that money to the rich and it disappears into investment in a tax haven and does nothing for the economy.

I realise that those living comfortably off their investment incomes will say that a minimum wage will make people lazy. On the contrary, given such a start, initiative will be funded as people strive for more.

Secondly, a small amount of energy delivered free to every house would remove the terrible and stressful situation that so many are in. With security that no one will freeze to death, everyone can look ahead and work to live their dreams.

Robert Murray

Nottingham